Net activists target 'Catholics who do not live the faith'

Posted Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010

BY RACHEL ZOLL

The Associated Press

Pressure is on to change the Roman Catholic Church in America, but it's not coming from the usual liberal suspects. A new breed of theological conservatives has taken to blogs and YouTube to say the church isn't Catholic enough.

Enraged by dissent that they believe has gone unchecked for decades and unafraid to say so in the starkest language, these activists are naming names and unsettling the church:

In the Archdiocese of Boston, parishioners are dissecting the work of a top adviser to the cardinal for any hint of Marxist influence.

Bloggers are combing through campaign finance records to expose staff of Catholic agencies who donate to politicians who support abortion rights.

RealCatholicTV.com, working from studios in suburban Detroit, is hunting for "traitorous" nuns, priests or bishops throughout the U.S. church.

"We're no more engaged in a witch hunt than a doctor excising a cancer is engaged in a witch hunt," said Michael Voris ofRealCatholicTV.com and St. Michael's Media. "We're just shining a spotlight on people who are Catholics who do not live the faith."

John Allen, Vatican analyst for the National Catholic Reporter, has dubbed this trend "Taliban Catholicism." But he says it's not a strictly conservative phenomenon -- liberals can fit the mindset, too.

Some left-leaning Catholics are outraged by any exercise of church authority.

Yet on the Internet and in the church, conservatives are having the bigger impact.

Among Voris' many media ventures is the CIA -- the Catholic Investigative Agency -- a program from RealCatholicTV to "bring to light the dark deeds of evil Catholics-in-name-only, who are hijacking the Church for their own ends."

The blog Bryan Hehir Exposed is aimed at a top adviser to Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the Rev. Bryan Hehir, who headed national Catholic Charities and is a professor at Harvard University. Among the claims is that Hehir is a Marxist sympathizer who undermines Catholic teaching on abortion and marriage.

Hehir, who has advised church leaders for four decades, hasn't responded to any accusations, and neither has O'Malley, a Capuchin Franciscan friar known for his humility. However, O'Malley said in April on his own blog that Hehir "inspires us with his compassion, vision and fidelity to the work of the Church."

The work of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is another frequent target.

Activists and bloggers, including Bellarmine Veritas Ministry of Texas, have been investigating the bishops' Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a national grant-making program created in the 1970s.

The activists concluded that some of the grantees back same-sex marriage, artificial contraception or abortion rights. Activists accused the director of the bishops' national social justice office of serving on the board of a nonprofit while it advocated for gay marriage and abortion. The claims against him were shown to be unfounded.